Trauma Work

Trauma is a psychophysical experience, even when the traumatic event causes no apparent bodily harm. The traumatic events exact a toll on the body as well as a mind and the specific consequences of trauma vary greatly depending on the age of the person, the response to the trauma, the provided support in the aftermath. People who suffer traumatic events will fall into two divergent categories: people who will remember the precise details that could still be accompanied by the disturbing emotional and bodily sensations, and the trauma survivors who cannot remember the events and experience numbness or deadness in the body and/or emotional life.

In addition to the incidental trauma, such as road traffic accidents, criminal assault, terrorist attack or the natural disasters, the latest findings in trauma research identified an ‘accumulative trauma’ usually experienced during the childhood when the person is especially dependant and vulnerable within the traumatic environment at home, school or other. The traumatic environment can also be the neglectful or emotionally unengaged style of parenting that can be internalised by the child and mirrored further in the adult life, in relationship to oneself and to others. Therefore, the childhood trauma can result not only from the sexual, physical or emotional abuse, but also can be experienced by the survivors of the alcoholic or substance use parents, or children who had one parent dying or leaving.

The trauma therapy involves:

  • Developing body awareness – employing the client’s own awareness of one’s body, the perception of the precise, coexisting sensations that arise in the body that will serve as a primary link to here and now as well as a current emotional state. This awareness is a direct therapeutic tool to gauge, slow down, and halt traumatic hyperarousal that makes it possible to separate the past and the present.
  • Find and use as an ‘anchor’ – awareness of current body sensation can anchor one in the present, facilitating the separation of the past, present, and further. Staying in the body as in a more habitable and less painful place, helps to resist the pull into traumatic memories. Finding a concrete, observable resource that utilises the mind and the body of the client, and to use a sustainable anchor in therapy and in the outside world, can provide a relief and wellbeing.
  • Use body as a break – by getting in touch with and to learn from the personal nature and dynamic of the hyperarousal it will be possible to recognise and break the habitual reaction-action chain. Therefore, it is possible to learn how to pace and break the malfunction patterns of being and behaviour.
  • Use body as a diary – through the sensory storage and messaging system, the body holds many keys to wealth of resources for identifying, accessing and resolving traumatic experiences. Therefore, identifying the triggers not only helps to trace the reaction back to the source but also to halt the anxiety. By studying the nature of the personal physiological and emotional reacting it is possible to develop new neuronal synaptic connections and to form new non-distractive habitual patterns of being and behaviour.
  • In working with childhood accumulative trauma – the key is developing trust and safety within the therapeutic relationship that further can result in internalising new ways of connecting to another human being and to sustain the relationship in a daily life. Therefore, new containing and supportive relationship can release old defences and one can learn and transfer this style of relating to the relationship with oneself and with others.